Monica Lewinsky says she no longer needs an apology from Bill Clinton

Monica Lewinsky is "grateful" to no longer feel the need for an apology from former President Bill Clinton — even though she thinks he should "want to" give one.

The former White House intern appeared on NBC's Today ahead of the Tuesday premiere of FX's Impeachment: American Crime Story, the new series that dramatizes Clinton's affair with then 22-year-old Lewinsky in the 1990s and his subsequent impeachment. When asked whether Clinton owes it to her to personally apologize, Lewinsky explained she doesn't need that resolution the way she once did.

"There was a long period before my life changed in the last six or seven years where I felt a lot in terms of there not being this resolution," she said. "And I'm very grateful that I don't have that feeling anymore. I don't need it."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

At the same time, Lewinsky added that Clinton "should want to apologize, in the same way that I want to apologize any chance I get to people that I've hurt and my actions have hurt." Lewinsky previously wrote in Vanity Fair that she's "less disappointed by" Clinton failing to apologize to her personally but "more disappointed for him," as "he would be a better man for it ... and we, in turn, a better society." In 2018, Clinton said that he "did say, publicly, on more than one occasion, that I was sorry," but he argued "I do not" owe Lewinsky a personal apology.

Lewinsky in the Today interview also reflected on feeling "nervous" for audiences to see "a lot of behavior that I regret" in Impeachment, and she addressed the question of whether the Clinton scandal might have unfolded differently had it played out today rather than in the 1990s.

"It would be different," Lewinsky said. "I don't know that it would be as different as people want to think it would be."